


I won't let you give up on a miracle

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Due to some prior injury, Sam's left with disfiguring scar. He stays mostly secluded and is more or less content with that, content to let Dean do the socializing necessary to keep them fed and housed. But, Dean's come down with a nasty fever and there's nothing in the house to help - Sam's packed him in ice, cold baths, alcohol rubs, everything. He has to brave town to get meds for Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I won't let you give up on a miracle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt at the ohsam Hurt/Comfort Comment Fic Meme on Livejournal.

“I’m going out, Sam,” Dean calls from the kitchen. He’s getting in the last bite of his sandwich before leaving. “Gonna get us some food. We’re worse off than inmates, man.”

Dean doesn’t expect an answer from the door down the hall. He hasn’t expected an answer from Sam for months. Every day he’s afraid that Sam isn’t answering because he can’t and when he comes back home he’ll find Sam strung up from the rafters, or his brains spattered on the wall with a gaping crater in the back of his head. Maybe he’ll be cooling in a tub full of water with a stomach stuffed to the brim with sleeping pills. He just has to trust that Sam loves him enough to not make Dean go through with having to find him like that. He just has to trust that Sam knows that if Dean has to suffer that, he’ll probably just follow right behind Sam and Sam doesn’t want Dean offing himself either.

But every day it’s a game of chance, it’s a friggin’ Russian Roulette, and Dean’s never sure if today is gonna be the day the carousel lands on the bullet.

Dean shrugs on his jacket, the familiar leather feeling good against his calloused fingers. He steps outside and it’s a beautiful day. There are a couple fluffy, cottony clouds drifting lazily in the cerulean sky and the sun is blinding, hitting his cheeks and he knows his freckles are standing out obnoxiously right now. It’s the type of day that Sam would have loved. The type of day Sam would don his sweatsuit and sneakers and head outside for a jog, some kind of indie emo pop hipster shit in his earphones. But Sam hasn’t seen sunlight in months. Hasn’t seen moonlight in months. Hasn’t seen the outside of their house in months.

He squints against the glare and makes his way to the Impala. When he climbs inside, her leather is so warm he can feel it through his jeans. The steering wheel stings against his palms, and it takes a few turns of the key to get the engine roaring since it’s a bit overheated.

The grocery store is only five blocks away, but he’s expecting to buy quite a lot of bags of groceries. They really are cleaned out. It wouldn’t do to survive two Apocalypses and countless battles just to die of starvation in their own home because Dean never got around to doing the shopping. That would be anticlimactic. And Winchesters don’t do anticlimactic.

It takes him twenty minutes to find everything and load it into his red shopping cart. Some people wave at him. A few call out his name and he smiles at them, waves back. It’s still so weird living in a place where he’s recognized, where people know who he is and  _don’t_ want to gut him on sight. It’s refreshing. It’s nice. It reminds him of his time with Lisa. Except now when he goes home, it won’t be kisses on his lips and fist bumps from a cute twelve year old. When he goes home, he’ll be greeted by silence and surliness on Sam’s part.

Dean can’t complain, really. He’d prefer Sam be depressed and moody out of his room, than depressed and suicidal inside of his room.

Once he has everything he needs, he makes the line at the in-store pharmacy. The forged prescription sits heavy in his back pocket, as if it’s burning him right through his jeans, making him hyperaware of it. It’s not the fraud that makes him uncomfortable- he’s lied worse in his time. It’s the fact that he needs to pick these meds up at all. Sam shouldn’t need these pills. He should be safe, healthy, happy. That’s Dean’s job, right? To keep Sam safe, healthy and happy. The prescription is a testament to how much Dean has failed, because he couldn’t keep Sam healthy, so now Sam has to resort to other methods.

Salma is on shift today, and that makes Dean grin. She’s the type of gorgeous, sexy young lady that Dean would have hit on without a second thought, but Salma’s become a good friend of his over their time in this town. Granted, they only speak when Dean comes to pick up Sam’s pills, but she’s nice and friendly and sweet and funny and her accent is endearing as hell.

“Hey, there, beautiful,” he greets and Salma rolls her eyes.

“Hola, Dean. How are you today?” Her thick Hispanic accent never fails to make him feel warm and happy for some reason.

“Just fine and dandy,” he replies, even though it’s a blatant lie and she knows it. He reaches back and pulls the prescription out of his back pocket. “You got those meds for me?”

“Of course.” She steps away from the counter, Dean’s prescription in her small, delicate hands. Dean’s been suspecting that she knows they’re forged, that she’s known for a while, but never comments on it.

“How is Sam?” Salma asks when she comes back, the little white paper bag with the stapled papers up front. He loves how she makes the ‘a’ short instead of long when she speaks.

Dean takes the bag from her and signs where he’s always signed. “Same as usual,” he mumbles.

Salma gives him the soft, pitying look and her eyes are so big and brown that Dean just wants to kind of curl up in her arms and have her sing him a song in Spanish to make him feel better. It’s a weird feeling, but something about this woman is so inviting and pure, and it’s something he’s missed, hasn’t had in a while.

“Dean, I know you don’t want to hear this-”

“Then don’t say it, Salma,” he cuts in, not enough bite in his voice to make him sound threatening, just bitter.

“-but maybe you should get Sam some professional help,” she finishes, completely unfazed by his protest.

Dean sighs, hands her back her pen, tosses the white paper bag in the cart, and runs a hand over his face. “To get Sam professional help, it would require Sam leaving the house first.” It’s a poor excuse, and one he’s used before, but he really doesn’t want to have this discussion. Again.

“There are therapists who visit homes, for special cases. Like Sam.” Her words are gentle, helpful, kind, but they strike Dean like a whip, making him mentally cringe. Sam shouldn’t be a case. Let alone a special one.

“Thanks, Salma,” he smiles at her, and she returns it, but she’s only humoring him. “I’ll see you next week.”

He leans in slightly already used to the way she presses her cheek against his and ‘kisses’ him. At first he thought it had been a come-on, but Sam later informed him that’s how people usually greet friends in Latin America.

“Have a good day, Dean.”

***

“Sam!” Dean calls out. “Get your ass out here and help me put away the groceries.”

When there’s no reply, Dean sighs. “I brought your happy pills,” he tries.

There’s a pause, a light thump, the sound of movement, and a door opening.

Sam comes padding out, slowly, limping, favoring his right leg.

Dean has seen Sam almost every day for the past couple of months, mainly when he comes out to shower or when Dean goes into his room to check he’s still breathing, but the sight of him never fails to make his throat close up. It’s not really the scar anymore. He’s used to the scar. It actually looks a lot better now than it did three months ago. Much less gnarly, nicely healed.

Dean is more affected by the waxy tone to Sam’s skin, sun-deprived and sickly. It’s practically yellow. Except for under his good eye, which is purplish. His hair is greasy and matted, long to just over his shoulders. It doesn’t have the ridiculous swoosh Dean would always tease him for. Now it’s just dead, hanging as limp as his left arm. It’s not a good look for Sam. This isn’t Sam. He’s a shell of what Sam was. Sam, his brother, had life, was healthy, fit, worked out, laughed- despite everything that had happened to him, he still found something to laugh at. Usually it was Dean, but not even Dean singing along to Radiohead like an idiot can’t get a crack of a smile out of Sam. And really, the fact that Dean knows Radiohead songs at all should be a laugh riot, in Dean’s opinion.

“Where are they?” he croaks, and his voice sounds like the dead.

“Being held hostage till all the food is put away,” Dean replies easily, but he’s actually kind of tense. This is a turning point in their days usually. Sam knows exactly where the pills are- right under the pie, because Sam isn’t supposed to care about the pie. Sometimes, Sam will just not care enough to humor Dean and go straight for the pie bag and take out his pills. He’ll rip open the bag, uncap the bottle and down two without water. Then leave the bottle on the counter and seclude himself in his room. (Dean always insists he leaves the bottle on the counter. He never lets Sam take it with him to his room and at night, Dean takes it with him to his own room and puts it under his pillow next to his gun. In the morning, he’ll take the bottle back out to the kitchen and give it to Sam with his breakfast, always keeping vigilant.) Those are the ‘Bad Days’. The days where Dean is extra vigilant, extra wary, extra terrified.

On the ‘Good Days’, Sam will feel of just enough good humor to help Dean with the groceries and then take the pills before going to his room. Those days, Dean breathes a little easier, relaxes a little more, doesn’t jump at the slightest bump, wondering if it’s his brother’s body hitting the ground.

On a few occasions, Sam has stayed out of his room long enough to help Dean cook dinner and then eat it with him at the table. He’ll never laugh, but he’ll crack a smile every now and then.

If Dean still believed in them, he’d call those days ‘Miracle Days’.

Today seems to be a Good Day. Sam helps put the food away and takes his pills, then goes back to bed.

Dean swallows down his bitterness and goes about making dinner.

***

**2 weeks later**

Sam sleeps on his right side. He likes being able to wake up with his arm tingling from lack of circulation. He likes that he can still feel it, the pins-and-needles, ants crawling under his skin kind of feeling. Sometimes he worries that if he does it too much for too long, he’ll cut off the circulation completely and he’ll lose feeling in that arm too. But when he sleeps on his left arm, he wakes up feeling numb and empty, like he’s not really there, not lying on a bed. He feels like he’s floating, no contact with anything but the sheets around him. It’s kind of scary.  
  
But that night, Sam doesn't wake up from the tingling in his arm or the frightening feeling of not feeling anything, but from a scream. It comes from across the hall, from Dean's bedroom, and Sam bolts from his bed as quickly as his bum leg will let him.  
  
"Dean!" he cries out. He's running (limping) as fast as he can, and he curses himself, hates himself, for not being able to go any faster. He calls out his brother's name again as he barges into Dean's room.

  
  


Dean is writhing on the bed, panting heavily, covered in a sheen of sweat. He’s mumbling and his eyes are screwed shut. It looks like a nightmare.

Sam collapses next to Dean’s bed because his bad leg combined with his nerves won’t let him stay up any longer. He shakes Dean’s shoulder, calling his name.

“I’m sorry,” Dean starts mumbling, and Sam isn’t sure if those are tears or drops of sweat trailing down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Sammy, I should’ve moved faster…should’ve gotten you out of the way…’s my fault, Sammy…sorry…”

Sam gulps. He knows exactly what Dean’s dreaming about. The accident that had left Sam permanently, horrifically scarred.

Sam shakes harder, and eventually Dean starts awake. “Sam!” he cries out and jerks, sitting up in bed. His T-shirt is stuck to his skin from the sweat. His eyes go unfocused and he seems to sway before he turns to the side of his bed- the one Sam’s not kneeling by- and vomits violently.

This is more than any nightmare, Sam thinks. It’s more like a night terror or something.

When Dean’s finished puking and crashes back onto his pillow, breathing heavily, Sam touches his hand to Dean’s forehead. It’s _scalding._

“Shit, Dean, I think you have a fever,” he mutters.

Dean groans. “Awesome.”

***

**Next Day**

Dean’s in the tub. Sam is pouring ice from one of their two buckets. The other bucket is next to the tub, just in case Dean has to puke again and can’t make it to the toilet, two feet away from the tub. It’s happened twice, and Sam washes the bucket out each time. There’s nothing worse than the smell of drying puke permeating the tiny bathroom, not even the smell of fresh puke.

Sam’s getting frustrated because Dean’s fever just  _isn’t_ breaking. They’ve been at this all day. Dean can barely move from how sore his muscles are, so Sam’s been wiping him down- his forehead, face, neck, arms, legs, and chest- with a wet, cool cloth. They’ve gone through their meager supply of meds.

Dean’s been in the tub for twenty minutes and the ice seems to melt the second it comes to contact with Dean’s overheated skin. Dean keeps complaining because he’s so  _cold._

Sam’s not sure what to do. If it gets any worse and doesn’t break, they may just have to go to the hospital.

***

**Next Day**

“Pills, Sam,” Dean is rasping. “I need  _pills._ ” Sam is two seconds away from tearing his hair out.

Dean’s been sicker than hell for two days now, with no sign of improvement, and they’re all out of medication. Sam’s at his wit’s end, and he’s running out of options. Dean’s not eating; anything he manages to get down simply comes back up a few minutes later.

Dean’s even been having feverish hallucinations, and that’s enough to have Sam on the brink of tears. Right now, he’s lucid enough to be giving Sam orders, and he’d be grateful for that reprieve if the orders weren’t ‘go outside’.

“Dean, I-”

“ _Sam,_ ” Dean practically pleads, giving Sam these sad eyes that are more red than green right now from how bloodshot they are. They’re practically accusing, as if Sam’s betraying him, as if he can’t believe that Sam would let his brother go through this torture just because he doesn’t want people seeing how broken he is.

Sam swallows. It was bound to happen sometime. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that he could live the rest of his thirty-odd years sitting contently in his house while his brother took care of him. He always knew he’d have to leave at some point, but he wasn’t looking forward to it.

He pulls on one of his hoodies, one of his old jeans that are soft and familiar, but a little tighter than he remembers. He hasn’t been very active at all, he’s put on some weight apparently, but hasn’t noticed with his constant use of sweatpants. At least his shoes fit as well as he remembers. It depressed him immensely that he could only move his foot enough to place it in his shoe, but not enough to push it completely inside and he had to push it in with his hand.

The keys to the Impala are cold and unfamiliar in his palm. He hasn’t driven her in a long time.

The smell of her is still the same, except for one small difference. The faint smell of blood is practically gone, masked over by stale cheese and humidity. They haven’t hunted in a while, so the scent hasn’t been renewed as it usually is. It’s still there, it always is, just a faint undertone, as much a part of the car as the leather seats.

Sam has to drive one-handed because his left hand is more of a hindrance than a help.

He has to think on it for a while before he remembers where the grocery store/pharmacy that Dean frequented is. When he parks, he makes sure his hoodie is completely up.

Before, when he wasn’t crippled, when he was just a regular guy, he was so uncomfortable with his size, that he’d hunch over, stick his hands in his pockets and try to make himself look smaller, less intimidating, more approachable. Now he does it too; he hunches his shoulders, sticks his hands in his pockets, and tries to become invisible. Now he ducks his head slightly, avoids looking up in case he accidentally locks eyes with someone. He just wants to get in, get Dean’s pills, and get out.

Sam makes his way to the back of the store and finds the pharmacy counter. He’s got the prescription for his anti-depressants in his pocket since he’s due for a refill and Dean was obviously unable to get them for him. There’s a small, cute Hispanic lady behind the counter and she smiles brightly at him when she sees him coming. Her nametag says ‘Salma’.

“Hello, sir,” she greets, and her accent is beautiful and welcoming. “How can I help you today?”

“Uhm,” Sam stammers, keeping his eyes on the counter so as not to meet hers. “My brother…he’s really sick. Really bad fever and uh…I need some pills for him. I…uh…don’t know which to get. And also, I have a prescription for my pills, to pick them up, so…” He bit his lip. He hadn’t realized talking to people again would be  _this_ hard. It’s not like he didn’t know how to talk. He talked to Dean all the time. But this was strangely difficult, like getting back on a bike after not riding it for years because you had a nasty accident.

“Oh, all right,” Salma smiles and holds her hand out. “I’ll get you your prescription and then help you find something for your brother,  _s_ _í?_ ”

Sam swallows and nods, taking out the crumpled note from his jacket pocket where he’s been mincing it in his fist out of nerves. She straightens it out and reads it over before her eyes widen and she looks up at him again.

“You are Dean’s brother,” she states. “Sam?”

Sam’s kind of taken aback. He hadn’t realized Dean told people about him. Vaguely, he remembers Dean telling him about the pretty pharmacist he met and how nice she was to him. Sometimes Dean would mention her in passing and Sam hadn’t exactly recalled her name, but he remembers her now.

“Yes, actually.” He tries for a grin, but isn’t sure how effective it is with the thick scar across the left side of his face. It covers from his hairline, over his eyebrow and his eyelid so he looks like he’s squinting all the time, and down his cheek. There are matching scars, thicker and longer, going down his entire left side and limbs. “You’re Salma. He’s told me about you.”

She chuckles, a soft, sweet sound that feels like a breath of spring. Sam actually feels his chest lighten, his shoulders loosen from their tension.

“Has he?” she asks, amused. “That man sure is something.” She sounds fondly irritated, as if Dean is someone that can get on her nerves in the more endearing way. As if they’re close. Sam was suddenly jealous. He hadn’t realized that Dean had other friends beside him. Dean was his one and only remaining friend, and that suddenly seemed depressing and lonely when faced with Salma’s sweetness. Sam missed having friends. He wished it were as easy for him to go out and meet people as it was for Dean.

Salma walks away behind the counter and she’s gone for a few moments before she comes back with the white paper bag that holds his bottle of pills. “Sign here,” she instructs, pointing at a dotted line.

As Sam bends over the counter to sign, Salma eyes him appraisingly.

“Dean’s told me you are very smart,” she tells him. “Says you got a full scholarship to Stanford a few years ago…he always sounds so proud when he talks about you and how smart you are.” Sam raises his eyes to meet hers, unsure what to say. “Proud…and kind of sad,” she adds soberly.

Sam leaves the pen on the counter, pockets his bag of pills and scratches the back of his head through the hood. “So…uh…how ‘bout those meds for Dean?”

She smiles softly at him. “Of course.” She walks away again and reappears from a door a bit farther down the hall, between rows and rows of over-the-counter medications. He goes up to her and she asks him what his symptoms are. As Sam lists them off, she nods contemplatively, looking thoughtful.

“Follow me.” She goes down the aisles, passing boxes and bottles of pills and vitamins while Sam limps along behind her. “I do not mean to…overstep my boundaries, but Dean speaks about you a lot.” She seems hesitant, as if she’s worried about insulting Sam or something.

“Oh?” He tries not to show how much he really doesn’t want to hear this. “What does he say?”

She picks up a bright red box and reads the label on the back. Shaking her head, she places it back on the shelf and doesn’t look at him. After a moment, she stops, turns and gives him a pair of big, brown, sad eyes to put Precious Moments to shame. “He tells me he misses you.”

Sam feels his throat close up and he fidgets with the edge of his hood, looking down at the floor. “These past few months have been…difficult,” he says lamely. He knows he hasn’t been himself at all, has been acting nothing like the faithful, strong, happy young man he had once been. “I just-”

“I know,” she says hurriedly. “You do not need to explain to me, really. Dean told me of your accident.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t any idea that Dean had explained to anyone the full extent of his situation. Salma hadn't seemed surprised when she noticed Sam’s limp or scar, just curious, as if she was judging it to see if it matched what Dean had apparently told her. Although Sam doubted that Dean had told her about the demons that ambushed them. “Did he?”

“Yes. He told me about the grenade went off too close to you in Afghanistan.”

Sam nodded. Dean had told her Sam was a soldier wounded at war. It wasn’t a complete lie.

“Yeah…it…uh…it wasn’t pretty,” he says wryly.

She nodded sympathetically. “I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you.” She bit her lip and turned back to the medicines. After assessing a few more boxes, she pulled out one with a small, satisfied noise. “This should get Dean back up on his feet.”

Sam took the box from her with a smile. “Thanks.”

“Any time.” She gave him a soft look and took a deep breath, as if she was bracing herself to say something. “May I show you something?”

Sam was a little wary, but he nodded and shrugged lightly. Salma reached into her jeans pocket under her white pharmacist coat and pulled out her wallet. She opened it and handed it to him. When Sam looked down, he kind of forgot to breathe for a second.

There was a picture of a couple in the wallet. The woman was beautiful. She looked exactly like Salma, except older and with light blue eyes instead of brown. She was smiling brightly, cheeks dimpling slightly and she was sitting next to a man, her arm draped over his shoulder, pulling him in towards her. The man was really the interesting part of the picture, as gorgeous as Salma’s mother was. He was an older man, with leathery tan skin and a receding salt and pepper hairline. At least, the skin was leathery and the hair was present on his left side. His right side was completely marred. It didn’t look like Sam’s scars. Where Sam’s were welted and white, the man’s were pinkish and seemed to be a part of his skin, like a gruesome birthmark. They took up a small portion of his face- just enough to cover his eye completely so he couldn’t even open it at all- and continued down over most of his neck and most likely down under his clothes, ruining miles of skin.

“What happened to him?” Sam whispered hoarsely.

“We lived in Cuba. When I was fifteen,” Salma began, “my parents decided we could no longer live there under the tyranny, and we planned to escape, as many do. We got a boat, managed to get to the port. That’s where the soldiers found us. My father wanted to give us a chance to escape. He fought them off while we boarded. He was beaten and shot at. Somehow, a fire broke out. I don’t really remember how, it was all such a blur. But my father got badly burned.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and Sam looked up to see there were tears in her eyes. “He yelled at us, told us to leave without him. We were only a few yards out to sea when he managed to get away from the soldiers. He jumped into the water and swam to us, beaten and bloody and broken. He survived but barely.” She inhaled deeply through her nose.

“Florida was much too far for my father to survive the journey, and if we appeared there asking for medical attention, they would find out we were illegal immigrants and deport us back to Cuba. So we changed course, went instead to Puerto Rico. They are…ah, what’s the word…? Ah, more  _lenient_ with immigration laws. They treated my father and after some time, we managed to gain citizenship. My parents still live there, but I came up to America to go to college. I visit them every year.”

Sam’s mouth was dry, completely speechless. “Salma,” he croaked out, but didn’t know what to add. She didn’t seem to be finished though.

“I did not show you this and tell you this to ask for pity,” she tells him. “I showed you because I want you to look at my father, look at how he is smiling.” Sam lowered his eyes back to the wallet in his hand. The man seemed happy. Disfigured beyond recognition, but there was no fakeness to the smile as he sat there, next to his apparently loving wife, who looked equally as happy to have him next to her. “Look at my mother, how she loves him. My father was a handsome man, Sam. He was gorgeous. My mother says she had to fight off several other women to claim him.” She chuckled slightly. “I remember seeing my friends’ parents in Cuba and how they were aging. Their hair was falling out, their bellies were swelling, they looked old and ugly and gross. But my father…my father aged so gracefully. He was one of those very handsome old men. After the accident…he grew depressed, much like you have. He wouldn’t let my mother touch him, too disgusted with himself to have her subject herself to touching something as disgusting as him.” She wrinkled her nose, as if the idea seemed to disturb her. “My mother was stubborn. She touched him, kissed him, loved him as she always had. She saw no ugliness in him, no shame. After a while, he stopped seeing it as well. Do you know why that is, Sam?”

Sam swallowed, eyes stinging slightly.

“Because those scars, he got them for us. For my mother and I. So we could live happy and well, so we could be free. He got them fighting for his family, protecting them. My father no longer walks with shame, Sam. My father walks with pride, he wears his scars like a soldier would wear a medal on his uniform. He wears them proudly, because they were for a good cause, and he succeeded.” She touches his wrist. “Tell me, before that grenade went off, did you accomplish what you had meant to do? Did you save someone? An innocent, maybe another soldier?” Her brown eyes bored holes into his face and Sam felt pinned to the spot. He wanted to run away from this, not have to face it. But for all of her 5’3 to his 6’4, she held him down stronger than any monster he had ever encountered.

Sam thought about her question. The battle with the demons...they had ambushed them because he and Dean had been going after an artifact, the one that would stop the war, lock all the demons in Hell forever without any chance of ever getting out.

They had won. They had stopped the second Apocalypse, saved the world yet again.

“Yeah,” he answers, voice strained and wrecked. “I did. I saved a few people.” A few seven billion of them.

She beams at him. “Then why do you hide? Why do you subject yourself to shame and misery? You should be  _proud._ You should walk with a gait, not a limp. Like my father.” Salma reaches up and pulls his hood down. “You and him…you are probably the most beautiful men I have ever seen. You are both heroes, Sam.  _Act_ like one. Your brother misses you.”

Before Sam could react, she was leaning up and kissing him- pressing her lips right on his cheek, over his gnarled scar. “You can pay for the pills at the register. Call me if Dean doesn’t improve. He has my number.”

She took her wallet from his hands and slipped it back in her jeans before flashing him one last smile and disappearing through the door.

***

When Sam gets back home, he can hear Dean moaning and groaning from the bedroom.

“What took you so damn long?” he asks grumpily, voice cracking and hoarse.

“I met your friend Salma. She’s…quite a character.”

Dean grunted, not very interested. He cared more about the pills Sam was placing in his palm and the glass of water he was being handed. Sam smiled softly.

“Hey, Dean?”

“Hm?” He sounded like he didn’t really care what Sam told him, but telling him so would require more effort than pretending he cared and he wasn’t willing to exert that much energy.

“I was thinking of getting a job,” Sam announced. “Help you with the bills and stuff.”

Dean turned watery, bloodshot eyes to him, brows furrowed. Sam held his breath, waiting for Dean’s reaction. Eventually, it came, and it wasn’t at all what he was expecting.

“Sammy, these pills you brought me are shit. I’m hallucinating again.” He rolled over onto his back, pulled the blankets up around him and promptly passed out. Sam checked the bottle.

‘Warning: may cause drowsiness.’

Sam snorted and left the bottle on the nightstand, then took out his own bottle. He downed one of them, doing a quick mental calculation of how long he should wait before taking the next one. He’d never cared before, just took one when he was feeling too down. But if he was going to start quitting, he’d have to do it gradually and regulate how many he took.

He was still depressed, still down, but he felt a little lighter. He felt like there was still a chance for him, still something he could do with his life. And even if he couldn’t find something, he didn’t have to live like a recluse for the rest of his life. Salma had been right. Dean had said something similar back when Sam had had his breakdown, but it hadn’t really affected Sam as much as it had when Salma told him her story.

Sam didn’t have a wife to love him unconditionally for what he had done, but he had Dean, who loved him and wanted him around. If Salma’s parents could be happy, so could he and Dean. It would just take some time, but Winchesters never backed down from a challenge. 


End file.
